Background
Dumarsais Estimé was born in Verrettes on 21 April 1900. He was bom in a small village, and was orphaned at a young age. Reared by an uncle, a magistrate and member of the national Senate.
government official politician president
Dumarsais Estimé was born in Verrettes on 21 April 1900. He was bom in a small village, and was orphaned at a young age. Reared by an uncle, a magistrate and member of the national Senate.
Got his primary and secondary education in Port-au-Prince.
He became a mathematics teacher at his alma mater, Lyceé Pétion, where he taught François Duvalier, the future dictator.
Estimé was active in politics at an early age and lost his teaching job for opposing President Louis Bomo during the U.S. occupation. When Bomo was replaced by President Stenio Vincent in 1930, Estimé became a member of the Chamber of Deputies and president of it for a time. Estimé also served in other portfolios in President Vincent’s cabinet.
Vincent was replaced by mulatto President Élie Lescot, who was deposed in January 1946 by a military coup. With the backing of the only black member of the three-man Executive Military Committee, Major Paul Eugène Magloire, and with support of the black intellectual community. Estimé was elected president by the National Assembly.
In 1950 Estimé decided to have himself reelected. He declared martial law and attempted to intimidate his opponents by mob violence. In May 1950 he was finally removed from office by the same junta that had paved the way for his assumption of power. He left Haiti and died in New York three years later. He was granted a state funeral by President Paul Magloire, and when François Duvalier came to power was named a national hero. Both his widow and son served in the Duvalier regime.
Estimé embarked on a program of reform which he labeled “socialist” but was more nationalist and populist in character. He restored the ban on foreign ownership of land and broke the monopoly of Standard Fruit in production of bananas, nationalizing their holdings and dividing them into seven sections that were parceled out to his supporters. Retaliation from the former owners resulted in almost total destruction of the industry.
Some of Estimé’s policies alienated both left and right. His efforts to create and encourage a black elite came to be resented and became a burden on the country’s fiscal resources. Despite successful efforts to encourage tourism, much of the inordinate sums spent on development of tourist facilities was unaccounted for. He imposed, for the first time, an income tax that particularly hit the elite. Moreover, he at least passively encouraged the practice of voodoo and attempted to curb and Haitianize the Catholic Church.